Auto loans · Methodology v2026.08 · graded 2026-09-05
PenFed grades C (61.1/100) for auto loans under our published rubric, with 4 of 7 dimensions scored — 45% of the rubric's weight, so the grade is provisional. Every number below links to the lender’s own page or a regulator’s record, with the date we retrieved it.
PenFed
Pentagon Federal Credit Union
50/100
Only a starting ("as low as") APR is published; no maximum/ceiling APR is disclosed, sourced from the lender's own official page (retrieved 2026-08-24).
No confirmed maximum/ceiling APR is available for this lender, so cost level cannot yet be compared to the benchmark. A published "starting at" rate alone is not a ceiling.
Origination/administrative fee data has not yet been collected for this lender.
A regulatory-enforcement-record search has not yet been completed for this lender. This is a research gap, not a clean bill of health.
75/100
93 CFPB complaints in the "Vehicle loan or lease" category, 2025-07-01 to 2026-06-30. Raw count only — not adjusted for the lender's size or customer count; see methodology limitations.
100/100
Verified via federal charter: Federally chartered credit union, verifiable via NCUA Research a Credit Union.
50/100
1 of 2 structural terms are clearly disclosed on the lender's own materials — disclosed: Loan term range — not disclosed: Loan amount range.
See PenFed’s own rate page · Graded 2026-09-05 under methodology v2026.08.
The weights and thresholds are published on the lender grades criteria page before any grade, using numbers fixed in advance. A stranger can take the same public facts cited here and reproduce this grade by hand. A dimension only scores when a real, sourced number exists for it — when one is missing we say “not yet researched” instead of averaging it away, and the “% of rubric scored” figure above is the exact fraction of the published weight this grade rests on.
4 of the 7 published dimensions — cost transparency, complaint density, licensing verifiability, terms clarity — each backed by a published number, a source URL, and a retrieval date. That is 45% of the rubric's total weight, which is why the grade is labelled "Provisional". The remaining 3 (cost level vs. mla benchmark, fee burden, regulatory record) are not scored yet; we say so rather than guess.
No. It is an educational summary of public facts about PenFed's published terms and public record under a rubric fixed in advance (methodology v2026.08). It is not legal or financial advice, and a grade cannot tell any one borrower whether a loan fits their situation.
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